Bank fraud cases will impact ease of doing business in India: Jaitley

New Delhi, Feb 24 : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday that incidents of bank frauds will impact ease of doing business in India and if incidents like this place periodically, the entire effort gets relegated to the background and these scars on the economy take the front seat.

Speaking at the Global Business Summit here, Mr Jaitley said the fact that loan frauds went on undisclosed in the banking sector and no one raised any red flag was worrisome.

Terming wilful defaulters“scars on the economy”, he said such cases will impact ease of doing business in India.

“If you periodically have incidents like these, the entire effort of ease of doing business goes to background and these scars on the economy take the front seat,” Mr Jaitley said.

He said regulators have a very important function and they ultimately decide the rules of the game, adding that they have to have a third eye which perpetually is open.

Unfortunately, in the Indian system, politicians were accountable instead of regulators, he stated.

A few days ago, in a rebuke to the auditors and the management of Punjab National Bank for their failure to detect the Rs 11,400 fraud, Mr Jaitley had said,'Supervisory agencies need to assess as to what new system has to be put in place to detect irregularities...should ensure the stray cases are nipped in the bud and they are never repeated.'